


After

by bookwyrrm



Category: Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party (Web Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 00:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13446417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrrm/pseuds/bookwyrrm
Summary: In the aftermath of the mass homicide-- uh, dinner party, Lenore and Edgar try to carry on with their lives.





	After

**Author's Note:**

> Writing two characters who have very distinctive styles of speech and trying to keep it readable is... interesting, to say the least.  
> Also Poe Party cured my writer's block. Enjoy!

After everyone leaves, Lenore starts cleaning up. Normally she hates cleaning with a fiery passion but right now she needs something to do. Focusing on staying corporeal enough to wash dishes keeps her from focusing on the fact that a whole freaking bunch of people died tonight, and the other, even stranger fact that gloomy, doom-y Edgar came out of this with friends. 

(Ok, maybe Lenore uses humor to cope. So what? Dead girls have feelings too.) 

Once she has pushed a very drunk Oscar out the door and promised to keep in touch, Lenore finds Edgar in his study, staring at one floorboard creepily. 

“Uh, hello?” She says. “Dr. Doom? What are you doing?” 

He jumps violently. “N-nothing. Definitely not contemplating murder and the subjectivity of my own conscience.” He laughs awkwardly. “Definitely not.” 

“Ohh-kay, weirdo. I brought you some soup. Noticed you didn’t eat it before, probably because of all the murder… anyway, we have, like, a lot left over so here.” 

She places the bowl in front of him. He stares at it for a moment, lost in thought, and then looks up. 

“Lenore,” Edgar says, “Are you being _nice_ to me?” 

Lenore glares at him. “ _No._ I just don’t want to throw out all of this delicious soup — that _I_ made, if you remember.” 

He smiles very slightly. “You’re a good roommate.” 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. First of all, I’m not your roommate, I am the spirit haunting you. _Big_ difference. Second, you don’t make fun of me, I make fun of you. And third —” He’s smiling like this is amusing to him and she huffs. “—Just eat your soup!” 

As Lenore leaves, though, she passes the body of Annabel Lee, lying like a doll on the armchair. Annabel, who was so kind and full of life and always a much better person than Lenore. 

“Fine,” Lenore admits to the corpse of her best friend. “Maybe I am being nice to him. But it’s just out of pity, because I am like 99% sure that he hid Eddie’s body somewhere weird and is freaking out about it. Also, you confessed your love to him and then kicked the bucket right after. Not cool, Anna Banana, not cool.” 

Thankfully, Annabel doesn’t respond. Lenore blinks a couple times, because her eyes are suddenly really watery. 

 _It must be all the dust around here,_ she thinks, ignoring the fact that ghosts don’t have allergies, and goes to wash some more plates. 

 

The police come back the next day, ready to take the bodies and apologizing profusely for the delay. (Apparently they don’t realize that several dead people are not the weirdest thing that can be found in Edgar’s house. At least all of the authors are in one piece and not hidden underneath any floorboards.) 

Lenore keeps up a steady stream of chatter as the police retrieve the corpses, but Edgar watches her closely. When George Eliot and H.G. Wells are loaded into a wagon, Lenore starts to flirt fiercely with a nearby policeman. She does not look at the bodies. 

Someone starts to take Wells’ weird invention, but Edgar stops them. “Do you think we could keep that, actually? I mean, you don’t need it for evidence, right?” 

The officer shrugs. It’s almost the end of his shift and he wants a drink. “Sure, go ahead.” 

Lenore glances over, twisting the necklace on her dress. When she sees Edgar looking at her worriedly, she makes a face and continues to feel her policeman’s muscles. 

If Edgar catches her running her hands over the contraption in the upcoming weeks, he doesn’t mention it. If she catches him tapping his quill anxiously to the rhythm of a heartbeat, she doesn’t mention it either. Some things are better left private. 

 

Lenore floats into Edgar’s study a few days later and yanks open the curtains. He groans and shields his eyes against the sudden onslaught of light. “What was that for?” 

“You’ve been brooding for ages, like some kind of sad vampire. And not the sexy kind, either. When’s the last time you left the house?” 

“Well, I’m… sad. Annabel Lee is dead. Her beauty will nevermore grace the Earth, her bell-like laugh will fade into the wind, her—”

“Okay, we get it,” Lenore interrupts impatiently. “But look, I’ve been thinking, and I think we ought to call one of Krishanti’s friends. I met them when she brought me back, and I think… maybe one of them could help us.” 

“Help us? You mean bring her back?” 

“Yeah.” 

Edgar stands up hurriedly, knocking over his chair in the process. “Well let’s do it then!” 

“Okay, okay. But… there is one other thing I kinda wanted to talk to you about.” 

“What, Lenore?” Why did she suddenly want to chat when they were a phone call away from getting his Annabel back?

“Um, the organs? That you hid under the floor?”

“What?” Halfway out the door, Edgar stops, turning back to stare at her. _Play it cool, Edgar._ “I mean… whaaaaat? Hah, what— what organs?” 

She raises one unimpressed eyebrow. 

“Okay, fine. I killed Eddie and stuck him under a loose floorboard.” 

Lenore gasps in delight. “How did he fit?”

“Well I had to… chop him up first. Wait — how do you know about this in the first place?” 

“Lady ghost, remember? We spirits know when someone has left the ranks of the living to join the legions of the dead.” Lenore pauses and drops the act. “But also it’s starting to smell.” 

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Yeah. So seriously, go bury them in the backyard or feed them to your ravens or whatever, but get them out of the house. And then I’ll call Janice.” 

“Who’s Janice?” 

“Krishanti’s friend? Come on, we _just_ talked about this. Janice, the medium?” 

Edgar makes a face. “Oh, of course. Janice the medium.” 

 

In reality, Janice the medium is much more impressive than her name. She’s dressed like a schoolmarm, but when she walks into the house she brings with her the feeling of raw _power._ Lenore goes translucent when she passes by. 

“So,” Edgar begins nervously. “A lot of people died here recently and we were wondering if you could—”

Janice cuts him off with a wave of her hand. “Bring them back. Got it.” 

“Um, do you need any candles or… herbs?” 

Her response is a derisive laugh. “No.” 

Janice brings Krishanti back with a snap of her fingers. Lenore waves as Krishanti’s spirit swooshes around the room and then gleefully flies out a nearby window. 

“Wow,” Edgar remarks. “That was pretty fast.” 

“Because Krishanti was so attuned to the spiritual world around her, it was easy to locate her soul hovering between worlds,” Janice explains. She looks at Edgar out of the corner of her eyes. “For those who are… spiritually constipated, so to speak, the transition would be more difficult.”

Lenore likes this woman already. 

“Now,” Janice says briskly. “Who did you want to raise?” 

Looking somewhat abashed, Edgar says, “Annabel Lee.” 

Janice closes her eyes briefly, humming a snippet of a song that Lenore feels like she’s heard before, maybe when she was very young, but had forgotten until now. 

Annabel's spirit flickers into being until she is standing before them, translucent. Annabel’s eyes are closed, her hands hanging peacefully at her side. Lenore can almost make out a ring of bruises marring Annabel’s pale neck. 

Janice says, “Are you the spirit of Annabel Lee?” 

Annabel opens her eyes. “I am,” she says gently, because everything Annabel has ever done is gentle and apparently even death couldn’t change that.  

“Do you recognize the people standing next to me?” The medium watches Annabel intently. 

Annabel’s eyes suddenly seem to focus. She says, “Edgar.” 

Edgar swallows with some difficulty and smiles back at her. The lump in his throat is preventing any words from forming, but Annabel seems to understand him anyway. 

They stare at each for a few moments longer before Lenore clears her throat and the pair snaps back to reality. 

“Hello, Lenore,” Annabel says, valiantly trying to hide her blushing. 

“Hey there Annie.” 

Janice says, “Annabel, I can bring you back if you so desire. Your spirit will remain on this plane of existence as a ghost.” 

“Oh!” Annabel looks at Edgar again. “Um, yes please. I think I would like that very much.” 

They smile at each other. It’s very sweet. Lenore would pretend to vomit if she weren’t just as excited about Annabel coming back so they can spend eternity as ghost-besties together.  

They go through the list of the rest of the authors who were killed. Most choose to go on, but Mary Shelley practically begs to become a spirit and haunt people. 

“I always knew I would end up roaming the lonely halls of my familial home, even after my body decays in the ground,” Mary says, a suitably mysterious look on her face. 

Janice nods in approval and works her magic. Mary Shelley gives them a last knowing smile and then vanishes, no doubt to go haunt a churchyard or scare some children or whatever it is she enjoyed doing in life. 

“Anyone else?” Janice asks. 

Lenore says, “What about H.G. Wells?”

“Hmm…” Janice closes her eyes and frowns. They wait. A few tense minutes later, she remarks, “Well, that’s odd.” 

Edgar says, “What is?”

“I can’t seem to find his spirit.” The medium hums to herself, eyes squinting into nothing. 

Annabel moves to stand next to Lenore and squeezes her hand. 

“I’m sorry, dear,” Janice says finally, looking as though she truly is sorry. “There’s no trace of him I can locate. It’s like he’s vanished.” 

“Oh.” Lenore tosses her hair back and smiles. “Whatever, it’s cool.” 

 

It’s not cool. It’s terrible, actually, because Edgar and Annabel are finally together and Lenore is happy for them, she truly is. But it’s no fun being alone. 

As a rule, she tries not to intrude on Edgar and Annabel when they’re being all couple-y, so instead Lenore makes some soup. Washes more dishes. Compiles a stack of books to read and finishes them way too quickly. 

Lenore attempts to hang out in the attic like she usually does, but her space isn't the same anymore. Instead of looking around and seeing the warm wooden walls and cushions that she made Edgar buy for her, Lenore looks around and remembers the attic filled with noxious smoke. So she leaves to find other spots in the house. After all, a location change is always good. The library has lots of dusty shelves perfect for moping.  

The worst thing about the whole situation is that it’s like Guy all over again. But at the same time it’s not, because Lenore _loved_ Guy, adored him with all her heart, and she didn’t love HG. In fact, she barely knew him.  

But Lenore can’t help thinking that she might have loved H.G. Wells. Could have loved his little quirks and clever hands, could have fallen so deeply it would make her head spin, if they had only had more time. 

(Then she feels guilty, like she’s somehow betraying Guy for thinking about _could have_ ’s and _maybe_ ’s — but then she remembers that it doesn’t matter because both of them are dead and they are never, ever coming back.)

Of course Annabel Lee notices Lenore’s black mood, because she is a wonderful person and friend, and promptly decides that Lenore should teach her how to settle in to her new life as a phantom. And thus the “Ghosting 101” lessons are born. 

 

They’re at one of these lessons when HG returns. 

He appears in a flash of smoke and for a second no one moves. Lenore watches him mutter something to himself, and wonders if her martini was stronger than usual. 

HG looks at her and his face lights up. Lenore allows herself to think, _This is real._

There’s some science talk which Annabel seems confused but enthusiastic about and Lenore says, “Wow, I live in a house full of nerds.” 

HG smiles. “It’s kinda great.” 

She smiles back. 

Annabel looks between them, excuses herself, and ducks out of the room. 

“Um, hi,” says HG. 

“Hi.” 

“So Miss Lee is a ghost now?” 

Lenore says, “Yep!” Her nerves feel like they’re tingling with electricity. She grasps at the fabric of her dress to give her shaking fingers something to do. 

“How long has it been?”  

“About three weeks.” 

His eyebrows shoot up. “Three weeks? That’s such a long time.” 

“Well, it could have been worse,” Lenore reasons. “Could have been, like, years or something.” 

He laughs absentmindedly. “Yes, I suppose it could’ve been.” 

There’s an awkward silence, then both of them start to talk at the same time. 

“Sorry, you can—” HG starts, but Lenore interrupts, “No, no, you go.” 

“Well, I—I just wanted to say that I’m terribly sorry, Lenore. That it seems to have taken so long, I mean. I just— well, I was… dead.”

She says, “Yeah. I remember. So then what happened?” 

He steps forward, his eyes lighting up the way she recognizes now, the way they do when he gets to talk about something that fascinates him. “Well. When I regained consciousness I was in a white, sort of limitless space. And I knew I was dead, somehow. So I started walking and then all of a sudden I was falling down a hole, and it just kept going and going, and all around were…peculiar images of different places and- and soundbites of a million different languages. And somehow I knew that I could keep falling forever… but then I thought of you. And I wanted to find my back to you.” 

There’s a curious look on Lenore’s face, and try as he might, HG can’t quite figure out what it is. She’s not saying anything, so he makes a little nervous gesture with his hands. “So here I am.” 

“HG?” 

“Yes?” 

“Get over here and kiss me.” 

And he does. 

 


End file.
